You’ve surely heard that a wave of AI-generated writing is polluting the internet. It’s true. What’s not true is the immediate conclusion we jump to when we hear that horrible prospect: There’s no escaping this tsunami of garbage.
That’s false for one simple reason, best illustrated with a question: How much AI-generated bullshit have you seen on Substack?
That’s right. None. Zilch. Zero.
Being a writer has never been easy (perhaps now easier than ever). We’re warriors who wield words as a weapon to slay our enemies: indifference, misery wages, plagiarism, and overwhelming competition in a low-demand society. Generative AI is just a new foe to fight down. Lucky for us, we have a new kind of ammunition; stacks and stacks of subs.
That’s my plan. Writing on Substack.
Not just because it provides me with an opportunity to grow and be discovered. But because it shelters and feeds me in return for my words. It’s a symbiotic relationship that extends beyond the new AI-shaped dangers. Substack shields us from the harsh environment outside, prevents the flood of crap to pass its digital doors and spoil the place, and favors our vulnerable—both in introspection and in defenselessness—human writing.
Substack was always a blessing for writers. In the age of AI, it’s twice the blessing.
Here’s something I wrote on Notes the other day:
Don’t you too feel that Substack is like one of the final bastions of human writing, erected in the middle of a wilderness that’s defenseless against the Corruptors.
I’ll be very mad if this fortress is conquered by the poison that’s killing the rest of the internet. For now, I stand firm on the rampart, as I glimpse beyond the battlements as the terrors of the night approach.
As an AI enthusiast who writes a newsletter dedicated to AI, I feel like a watcher with an implicit responsibility to warn those within the castle.
My role requires a clarification: I don’t see generative AI—the technology—as a threat. It’s wonderful. The threat is the unscrupulous who publish AI-generated words, passing them as theirs because they don’t care enough about the beauty of human creativity. I’ve elsewhere compared the current innovation wave to the printing press but it’s an invalid analogy: the printing press was useful in a way generative AI isn’t.
So as I watch over the battlements, I see the wild beasts approaching but I recognize their innocence being hijacked and corrupted by their human riders.
That’s the risk. Any human can become, at any time, a willing rider of the times we’re living. Even the platforms that appear to be so protective of us. ArtStation and DeviantArt embraced the technology in a bet to not be left behind and in turn, betrayed the very human artists who erected them into the juggernauts they’re today.
That could happen with Substack, too. Who knows. I want to believe so I don’t think it’ll happen here—not because they will prevent it but because humans naturally flow toward human creativity if their online ecosystem allows for it. There’s no truer truth in the age of AI than this: humans like humans.
That’s what distinguishes Substack from the other platforms. Where humans can flourish, humans can safely gather. This platform is a garden of human writing. That’s what makes my plan flawless, which if I were to put it more poetically, would be:
To gather here with you so we can flourish together.
